Our Hierarchy of Needs
Why true freedom is a luxury of the mind.
In his influential paper of 1943,
A Theory of Human Motivation,
the American psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that healthy human
beings have a certain number of needs, and that these needs are arranged
in a hierarchy, with some needs (such as physiological and safety
needs) being more primitive or basic than others (such as social and ego
needs). Maslow’s so-called ‘hierarchy of needs’ is often presented as a
five-level pyramid, with higher needs coming into focus only once
lower, more basic needs are met.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow called the bottom four levels of the
pyramid ‘deficiency needs’ because a person does not feel anything if
they are met, but becomes anxious if they are not. Thus, physiological
needs such as eating, drinking, and sleeping are deficiency needs, as are safety needs, social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy, and ego needs such as self-esteem
and recognition. In contrast, Maslow called the fifth level of the
pyramid a ‘growth need’ because it enables a person to ‘self-actualize’
or reach his fullest potential as a human being. Once a person has met
his deficiency needs, he can turn his attention to self-actualization;
however, only a small minority of people are able to self-actualize
because self-actualization requires uncommon qualities such as honesty,
independence, awareness, objectivity, creativity, and originality.
Although Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been criticized for
being overly-schematic and lacking in scientific grounding, it presents
an intuitive and potentially useful theory of human motivation. After
all, there is surely some grain of truth in the popular saying that one
cannot philosophize on an empty stomach, and in Aristotle’s observation
that ‘all paid work absorbs and degrades the mind’.
Aristotle (right): 'Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.'
Once a person has met his deficiency needs, the
focus of his anxiety shifts to self-actualization and he begins—even if
only at a subconscious or semiconscious level—to contemplate the context and meaning of life. He may come to fear
that death in inevitable and that life is meaningless, but at the same
time cling on to the cherished belief that his life is eternal or at
least important. This gives rise to an inner conflict that is sometimes
referred to as ‘existential anxiety’ or, more colourfully, as ‘the trauma of non-being’.
Existential
anxiety is so disturbing that most people avoid it at all costs. They
construct an inauthentic but comforting reality made up of moral codes, bourgeois values, habits, customs, culture, and even— arguably—religion. The Harvard theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and indeed Freud
himself suggested that religion is nothing more than a carefully
crafted coping mechanism for existential anxiety. For Tillich true faith
consists simply in ‘being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality
to which I give the symbolical name of God.’
Paul Tillich: 'If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.'
According to the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
(1905-1980), by refusing to face up to ‘non-being’ a person is acting in
‘bad faith’, and so living out a life that is inauthentic and
unfulfilling. Facing up to non-being can bring a sense of calm, freedom,
even nobility and—yes—it can also bring insecurity, loneliness,
responsibility, and consequently anxiety. But far from being
pathological, this anxiety is a sign of health, strength, and courage.
As Freud noted, ‘Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom
involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of
responsibility.'
For Tillich, refusing to face up to non-being not
only leads to a life that is inauthentic, but also to neurotic anxiety.
Tillich witheringly remarked that neurosis is ‘the way of avoiding
non-being by avoiding being’. According to this outlook, neurotic
anxiety arises from repressed existential anxiety, which itself arises
from the nature of the human condition and, more specifically, from our
uniquely human capacity for self-consciousness.
Facing up to
non-being enables a person to put his life into perspective, see it in
its entirety, and thereby give it a sense of direction and unity. If the
ultimate source of anxiety is a fear of the future, the future ends in
death; and if the ultimate source of anxiety if uncertainty, death is
the only certainty. Facing up to death, accepting its inevitability, and
integrating it into life not only cures one of neurosis, but also
enables one to get and make the most out of life.
While
the symptoms of menopause generally start to appear around the age of
45, they can actually start developing years earlier. Some of the
symptoms of menopause include less frequent menstrual cycles, and a
decline in libido and overall energy. 
